


Not Just a Job

by Dogsled



Category: due South
Genre: Case Fic, Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M, Mistletoe, Undercover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-06
Updated: 2015-01-06
Packaged: 2018-03-06 10:21:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3130997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dogsled/pseuds/Dogsled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fraser and Ray are undercover looking for a murderer, but maintaining the pretense isn't as easy for Ray as Fraser makes it out to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Just a Job

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lilyleia78](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilyleia78/gifts).



They'd made it into Gillian's circle. Not easy to do, but undercover was bound to have its roadblocks. Ray had been a roadblock--or perhaps more accurately, he'd been an _avalanche_ ; half a million tons of ice and snow laid across their path. He'd come round in the end, but it had taken much insistence from Fraser, and a smidgen of carefully designed cajoling from Francesca.

In the end Ray had pretended like the idea had been his all along. It hadn't been an easy job: first Fraser had needed to move in with Ray, which was an enormous step, and turned out to be more difficult for Fraser to deal with than his partner. Certainly it was Ray's home, but it wasn't unusual for him to have to share it with another person, while Fraser was far from experienced with cohabitation.

They'd attended the bar together after that. It was a theater bar full of lively personalities where miraculously Fraser fit in well. That wasn't strange either; Fraser talked about playwrights and poets that Ray had never heard of, and occasionally he sung heartily, which always seemed to warm people right up to him. Ray on the other hand was sullen and quiet, antisocial even--but that, Gillian told Fraser warmly, only made him seem delightfully enigmatic.

But Ray was having a hard time of it, and Fraser couldn't blame him. They were partners; they had to be close as a matter of course, and they had to trust each other no matter what, but this was testing that trust to its limits. In order to catch Gillian's eye, they had to be more than partners, they had to feign being lovers instead.

For whatever reason Ray found the situation particularly difficult to deal with. Fraser suspected it was because his recently ended relationship with Stella was still far too painful. It seemed to take everything in Ray just to sit still when Fraser sat down, hip to hip with him, and wrapped his arm around his waist.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Fraser tilted his nose into Ray's ear as he spoke, causing him to shudder in what Fraser suspected was revulsion. It was okay. The Christmas party wasn't going too badly, and Fraser thought it was immensely likely that they'd find the gun, and therefore the murderer, that they were here to catch.

"I'm uh--I'm fine," Ray said, acidly, leaning slightly away before he checked himself. "Yeah, I'm okay. Do you gotta lean so close? You're suffocating me."

Fraser leant back, but not before taking Ray's hand, linking it in both his own on the tabletop, where they could be watched. Ray bit his lip, but didn't pull away.

"Are you sure this is gonna work?" Ray asked, after a moment. "I mean it's not really that convincing, is it?"

"We're not convincing?"

Ray chewed at his lip a little more urgently. "I don't feel convincing."

"You just need to relax, Ray."

"But I'm not... I'm just not comfortable being this close to you."

"Then pretend I'm a woman, Ray, like I suggested before."

"Look, Fraser, it's got nothing to do with you being a man or a woman. It's--it's us. It's us, you know? I don't want to mess this up."

"Oh Ray, it's just a job--"

"It's not just a job," Ray snapped, startling Fraser.

"I don't understand."

"Doesn't matter." Ray shrugged, turning away. He still looked sullen, and Fraser was no closer to understanding why.

Fortunately his thoughts were disturbed by Gillian approaching them, waving a stick with something dangling off the end of it. She reached them just a moment later, flushed with pleasure, and waved the stick over their heads.

" _Viscum album_?" Fraser asked, perking up slightly.

"What?" Ray asked. He hadn't noticed Gillian approach, had been instead staring at his trapped hand distractedly.

"Mistletoe, Ray."

"Oh." Ray blinked, glanced up, shot a look toward Gillian. "Oh-- Oh, er..."

"Ray, it's tradition."

"Sure," Ray answered, anxiously. His fingers were trembling against Fraser's. "I mean... Right, tradition. I mean--"

They were on the spot now. Several of Gillian's friends were watching them, and Fraser sighed and shook his head. "He's just a little nervous. Performance anxiety."

"Yeah, that's what it is. In public, you know--in er...in front of other people."

Fraser moved one of his hands up to Ray's cheek, stroking soothingly. "It's just a kiss."

"Just a kiss," Ray repeated, looking slantways at Fraser's hand. He looked like he wanted to vibrate through the floor. "I can uh...I can do that."

"Yes, you can," Fraser urged, still trying to comfort him. If Ray could only find the nerve to do it. Still, it was left to Fraser to close the distance between them, holding his breath as his lips approached Ray's, so as to not startle him. Ray was holding his breath too, as solid as a statue beneath his hand--until their lips actually met, at least, and then he came alive.

Suddenly Ray was reciprocating, leaning into him, reaching his free hand up to flatten it against Fraser's chest. Ray kissed him with surprising eagerness, and before Fraser could really prepare for it he was being tipped back, Ray's tongue slipping between the slightest surprised parting of his lips. Ray was warm, and the kiss was almost urgent, bleeding out the longing that had clearly been overwhelming him. Fraser hadn't understood before what the problem was, but now he did. This wasn't just a job, and Ray had been terrified that he wouldn't be able to hold himself back, that he'd give away how he really felt--which was exactly what he'd done.

When he drew back - after the longest kiss Fraser had ever had - the sound of whooping and cheers around them was nothing but a distant echo. Fraser was preoccupied with watching Ray's face, which had contorted into a kind of terror right in front of him.

"Ray." Ray panicked, but Fraser moved his hands up to take him by the shoulders, holding him in place. "It's okay. It's okay, I understand."

"Fraser--"

"Just kiss me again," Fraser told him, softly.

"You mean it?" Ray asked, and almost at once his trembling seemed to cease. Fraser smiled, and nodded, which seemed to be permission enough for Ray, who pressed in at once and kissed him earnestly.

They'd catch their bad guys, sure, but for right now--for right now Fraser was quickly discovering that there was a side to this job that he just hadn't expected, and a side to Ray that he was desperate to discover in more detail.


End file.
